Loanwords from other countries, called gairaigo (外来語), make up a significant part of the Japanese language, and learning their nuances is a key part of being truly fluent in Japanese. Many of these words, for example seetaa(セーター, meaning “sweater”), are used in a way that is very similar to their original language. However, some loan words have… Read More »
When learning a foreign language you sometimes come across words that, while mostly translatable on a case-by-case basis, are hard to translate literally to your native language (English in my case) such that all its nuances are carried over. If you can understand the ins and outs of these words you can even make them… Read More »
In this post I’d like to go over a useful Japanese word: うそ (uso), which means a lie, or more accurately something that is not true. The Kanji for uso is made up from a few different radicals, but the two biggest ones mean mouth (口) and tiger (虎): 嘘 This term is especially useful in casual… Read More »
When studying Japanese, especially if you don’t live in Japan, there are always blind spots which can develop in your learning depending on what materials and methods you use to study. One area that I’ve found difficult is slang, because many of the materials I use (especially books and TV dramas) tend to not use… Read More »
When learning words in a foreign language, the only way to get a full understanding is to gather data from as many sources as possible: dictionaries, media (fiction/nonfiction) and of course as many real-world situations as possible. I see this is as chiseling away the various subtleties of this word little by little until you have the… Read More »
In this post I’d like to talk about the Japanese word 問題 (mondai), a very useful word which has several meanings. The first meaning, possibly the most common, is “problem” in the sense of something that is not going according to plan. A: 大丈夫ですか？ [Is everything OK?] B: ええ、問題ないです。… Read More »
As anyone who has studied a foreign language can attest to, knowing what words to study is one of the more challenging things because there is so many words out there. In this post I’m going to go over the word “ほか”（also written in Kanji as “他” or ”外”) and some of it’s uses. This… Read More »
In my last post, I wrote about how the Japanese word “くるま” (which means “car”) originated from the words ”来る” (to come) and “魔” (devil). While these two words are actual words with the meanings I specified, the truth is that they have nothing to do with the word ”くるま”. After all, my post yesterday was written on April… Read More »
According to a poll I’ve been running since August 2014, the number one thing people would like more from this blog is information about Japanese Grammar. Writing about grammar is tricky since there are are many good books and websites about it, and I like to try and avoid duplicating content that is available elsewhere. So… Read More »
Quickly getting bored with academic learning materials, I always search for new ways to use Japanese without actually living in Japan. Typically, the more fun the activity is the more positive feedback there is and the more likely it will continue. One game which is entertaining and requires no physical props or materials is game of… Read More »